Ex Parte McCardle

Ex Parte McCardle, (1869), refusal of the U.S. Supreme Court to hear a case involving the Reconstruction Acts. The court’s refusal marked the apogee of Radical Republican power to determine national policy.

William H. McCardle was a Mississippi editor who was arrested and jailed for sedition after criticizing both the local Union military commander and Congress. He was denied the benefit of habeas corpus but sought to take advantage of the Radicals’ recently passed Habeas Corpus Act, designed to protect newly freed slaves against Southern state courts.

The Habeas Corpus Act provided for appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court in any case where a person was denied constitutional rights. McCardle, after being denied a writ from a federal circuit court, appealed to the Supreme Court on the basis that the military commission in Mississippi was unconstitutional.

The Supreme Court agreed to hear McCardle’s appeal, and the Radical Republicans envisioned a repetition of Ex Parte Milligan, in which the court limited the jurisdiction of military tribunals. Fearing that the court might declare the Reconstruction Acts (which mandated military occupation of the South) unconstitutional, the Radicals passed a law stripping the court of its power of judicial review with regard to Reconstruction measures. President Andrew Johnson vetoed the bill, but Congress overrode the veto.

In 1869 the court dismissed McCardle’s appeal on the grounds that it now lacked jurisdiction over such matters. Congress had thus established its supremacy over both the federal executive and judicial branches.